Building Cages
by pari106
Summary: A dark little AU future for the DA characters. "We build our own cages, you know...Max built hers the day she broke into Logan Cale's penthouse. I guess she kind of helped him build his, too...Now I'm building mine. I just hope I can live with it."


Building a Cage  
by pari106  
  
pari106@hotmail.com  
http://www.geocities.com/pari106/damain.html  
  
Code: AU; Disclaimer: Dark Angel belongs to Cameron, Eglee, and FOX; Rating: PG-  
13 for language.  
  
Summary: A dark little glimpse at an alternative future for the Dark Angel characters.  
  
A/N: Beware: lots of angst ahead.  
  
  
by pari106  
  
  
  
I don't know how long it's been since I've come to this place. Years, maybe. Ten, at   
least. Twenty? Decades. It doesn't feel like it. But, then, in a way, it feels like it's been   
centuries.  
  
I walk down the dirty streets of Seattle, kicking refuse out of my way. The streets are   
covered in filth – garbage, broken bottles, broken bodies. I remember it was bad before,   
but its worse now. And I suppose I should have expected this. After the political   
revolution of 2032 Washigton became little more than one big home for the homeless.   
And we all know how the government treats its downtrodden.  
  
Now there's hardly anything left. The buildings have disintegrated. Most every   
neighborhood is as filthy as the one I'm walking through now. Some are worse. A very   
few, poor souls wander through the mess, starved and diseased and barely wearing the   
rags on their backs. They search for salvation, knowing they will find none. They don't   
even bother stopping me as I walk by, with my clean clothes and healthy complexion.   
Somehow that's worse than if they begged.   
  
The New Democracy began Reconstruction about five years ago now, but not in places   
like Washington and New York, where the worst of the war damage had been suffered.   
Instead our fine new democratic administraton started anew in places like Illinoise, and   
what remained of California, and Wyoming, where the new national capitol is located.   
Meanwhile their constituents here in Seattle rot like living corpses in the ruin of a once   
proud city. We the people for the people, my ass.  
  
But it was always like this, wasn't it? It was always about the big man squashing the   
little man. Missions and priorities; discipline and duty. And that duty doesn't include   
wasting resources on the sick and the weak.  
  
"Only the strongest survive, soldier," Lydecker used to rant at us kids. "Remember that."  
  
Oh, yes, I remember. Manticore, sweet Manticore.  
  
Back then we thought Manticore was a set of beliefs. A handful of doctors and soldiers,   
a cold, sterile institution and a bunch of war drills and lab experiments.  
  
Only, we were wrong.  
  
Manticore is the whole fucking world.  
  
At least, it is now. Maybe it always was. Maybe we were just too fucking young and   
naïve to know better.  
  
We. The X5s. Me and my brothers and sisters – Manticore's proudest acheivement and   
most shameful disgrace. We who escaped that cold, sterile institution and languished   
away in the cold, messy world beyond.  
  
"Only the strongest survive…"  
  
Yeah, I remember, asshole. Colonel Lydecker. "Deck". Father. Whatever the hell you   
wanted us to call you, I don't know. But I do remember.  
  
And I'm here cause I also remember that time when I was young and naïve. When I had   
my brothers and sisters and we were naïve together.  
  
The remembering is a special thing now that all the fuck I've got left is my memories.   
As painful as it is, I like to remember. I guess I came here to remember one last time,   
before the deed is done and even that is taken from me. The power to remember.  
  
I've been walking a while now and I remember when this street used to be totally lined   
with fences and guard posts. This was the entry point to Sector 9, the high-rise district,   
when there used to be Sector Police and high-rise districts. The horizon used to be   
covered with tall, beautiful buildings of all sorts of designs.  
  
I can still remember the first time I saw a city. Not like in the pictures back at Manticore,   
when they made us memorize the layouts of enemy population centers. But up close and   
personal. I was breathtaken. I thought it was the most gorgeous thing I'd ever seen. All   
the lights, the fancy architecture. Everything back in Gillette was uniform, utilitarian. It   
was a silly thought for a soldier – even one who was only 10 years old – but that night I   
looked up at my first skyscraper, I thought it looked just like a huge Christmas present,   
all lit up like with Christmas tree lights. It was December, you know, and there were   
holiday decorations and holiday shoppers everywhere; holiday programs all over   
television. So I learned all about Christmas. And looking up at that building, I wanted to   
live there. Inside a Christmas present, surrounded by light and activity and the total lack   
of uniformity and utilitarianism. And I made sure Zack put me in a big city any time he   
moved me after that.  
  
I didn't tell him why. I didn't leave the discussion open for debate. I just listed a few   
possible new assignments and Zack chose one. I suppose he figured it was the least he   
could do, since I never gave him hell about leaving town like Max or Zane did. Or even   
Tinga, once or twice. He told me to pack and I did. So he always let me choose. And I   
always chose a place with buildings that reminded me of Christmas.  
  
Only now, if buildings are like gift boxes, then the old skyscrapers of Sector 9 were   
opened and discarded a long time ago. They rise out of the horizon like huge, metal   
skeletons, all bare and broken and ugly. I can barely make out any of the old sights.  
  
Over there used to be the Space Needle. There's nothing left of it now. It was   
abandoned after the Pulse, and they tore it down in 2025. There's just an empty space in   
the skyline now where it once was.  
  
And that hollowed out old complex over there used to be called Foggle Towers.   
  
Max mentioned it once. Said it was real pretty – not that you could tell now. Max's   
boyfriend had lived there – Logan Cale. A couple of years after his death, some old   
doctor or something bought it when the government put it up for auction. Big black guy.   
I think he used to be a physical therapist before the war, and he was a friend of Logan's   
apparently. He turned the building into the Cale Museum of Historical American Art, but   
he had to relocate out of state when the fighting made its way to Washington. I hear his   
kids still run the place.  
  
I met him once, you know. Not the therapist guy, but Logan. I met him the night of that   
fateful last mission to blow up Manticore's labs. He seemed nice enough. Real quiet, but   
with this strength and confidence in the way he looked at you that kind of surprised me, if   
you want to know the truth. He got his spine all blown to hell a year before, but there he   
was walking around. And he was just a norm, wealthy from what I could tell; he had no   
reason to side with us, but there he was, doing his part. I could understand what Max saw   
in him.  
  
I never saw him after that, except on t.v. But Manticore saw a lot of him over the years.   
I think he went nuts after Max died. Some fucking X7 clone shot her in the heart on the   
night of the raid, and Logan was there with her when she died, screaming and crying and   
Lydecker had to knock him out to drag him away.  
  
He was on the government's most wanted list in a month.  
  
A few unfortunate press releases here, an explosion or a shootout there, and he made   
some very low enemies in some very high places. Krit said he was just doing his job the   
way he had before, as Eyes Only, only that he was doing it different now. I think he was   
out for revenge.  
  
And he got it. The night Max died, Lydecker took off before Logan woke up. Before   
either Krit or me could get over the shock of losing two of our own and kill the fucking   
bastard like he deserved. I guess the X5s could have gone after him. Jondy said she was.   
But she never caught up to him. Then, one night there it was on the television set – this   
unannounced pirate message spliced into the middle of the nightly news. Someone had   
gotten their hands on a news report that the government hadn't wanted on the air, and had   
apparently decided to share it with the public. Seems this discharged army colonel was   
found dead in a parking lot outside a hospital. Shot in the chest, right through the heart.   
  
Imagine that.  
  
The brief clip didn't include a name or a picture. But Jondy stopped looking, all the   
same.  
  
And that was the first and last time we heard, either directly or indirectly, from Eyes   
Only. Because I know that pirate message was meant for us X5s. And a year later Logan   
Cale was shot and killed crossing the Canadian border. He was trying to smuggle this   
Korean family out of the country before the government could get to them. One of them   
was an ex-cop who used to be one of Logan's informants. I think the only one who   
survived was the ex-cop's son, who was probably about fourteen at the time. He   
disappeared after the massacre, but about four or five years later Eyes Only returned.   
And a totally different set of eyes started staring back at me through the t.v. screen. Dark   
eyes, instead of blue. I think they've changed twice since then, too.  
  
I guess I should consider that to be something. Something to put a little hope into. All   
this time, all this death, and something, at least, is still there like it used to be. The eyes   
of Eyes Only have changed, and its location is different, but its still there. Somewhere.   
Protecting the downtrodden. Blah blah, Woof woof.  
  
I guess I should consider that a reason to hope. But I don't. I guess I could look up this   
new Eyes Only guy. Try and help, like Max did for Logan. But I don't. I guess I should   
care. But I can't.  
  
Because I'm not young and naïve anymore. This screwed up genetic cocktail that is me   
still looks every bit the young, beautiful soldier I was back then, before everything went   
to hell. Before we lost Zack and Max, then Logan. Then Zane, shot down in his home   
with the wife and family he'd been denied while Zack was alive. And Jondy, who'd   
never really been stable in the first place. She'd started deteriorating the day we lost   
Zack, and she just kept spiralling downward until there was nothing left to do but crash.   
She committed suicide, is what she did. What else could you call rushing an armed   
batallion of Manticore soldiers – unarmed? And finally Krit. Krit, who was closer to me   
than any of the others. I was there when he died. When the seizures went from bad to   
worse. I'd never had them as bad as the others, so when triptophan became impossible to   
get, it didn't effect me much. But it effected Krit. Without the necessary drugs, he just   
got worse and worse. He even asked me to put him out of his misery, but I couldn't. I   
just couldn't. And it didn't really matter, because he died the same night, anyhow.  
  
We never knew how long these barcodes of ours were supposed to last; we were never   
told. But I guess, without the seizures, they last one hell of a long time. Because it's   
been years since I've been back here. Decades. And my body still hasn't aged a   
goddamned day. My blonde hair hasn't grayed. My blue eyes don't sport any wrinkles   
around them.  
  
I suppose it just makes sense. Ole Manticore spent a hell of a lot of money and   
manpower on us. Lydecker spent most of his life trying to get us back. That bitch,   
Renfro, spent the last of hers trying to do the same. She very nearly succeeded, too. She   
rose right up through the ranks of Manticore till finally someone even more ambitious   
tore her down. Then he suffered the same fate. And so on, and so on. Different faces,   
same cause. Seems to be a recurring theme around here.  
  
Anyhow, I guess it makes sense. If you had a few billion dollars to build, say, the   
world's greatest mousetrap, you wouldn't ever want to have to buy another goddamned   
mousetrap again. Granted, mousetraps don't assassinate world leaders or blow up   
countries. But the same basic idea applies. You spend a few billion dollars on something   
you want to last.  
  
So I'm lasting. It's almost scary how I'm lasting. Maybe the lasting is even scarier than   
the thought of dying. No, in fact, I know it is. My body hasn't aged a day, but my soul   
feels ancient. And I don't want to last anymore. I don't want to feel old anymore, or to   
look young any longer. I want to wear my experience on my skin like a medal. I want to   
go gray and to wrinkle. I want some little sign that the last fifty or so years of my life   
really happened.  
  
Because I'm not young and naïve. I know that, in the end, that's all I'll have to show for   
my life. Little signs that I ever really lived. Scattered memories of the people I cared   
about.  
  
I want some little sign that those people were a part of my life. But then again, I don't. I   
came here to Seattle because I want to remember. But then, again…I don't.  
  
I don't want to remember because remembering just hurts too much.  
  
That's why I made my decision. That's why I'll be leaving for Wyoming in the morning.  
  
Because remembering just hurts too much. My soul is old and tired and I just don't want   
to hurt anymore. I don't want to live anymore – not like this. When I was young, and   
my brothers and sisters were young, we thought we could escape the cold, sterile world   
that had been all that we had ever known. We thought we could escape and that   
everything would be better after that. Everything would be okay. We would be in   
danger, and we would be separated, we would be hunted, and some of us wouldn't make   
it...but it would be okay. Because we'd be free.  
  
But now I know that there is no "free". Not for someone like me. Nothing that costs as   
much as my family has paid can ever be called free. We escaped the cold, sterile world   
we grew up in, but we were never free.   
  
I'll never be free. So, really, the only choice I have is in what type of cage I really want   
to live in. This cold, messy world? With the illusion of freedom, and the pain of my   
memories? Or the cold, sterile world of Manticore? With no memory. No pain, but also   
no pleasure, no good and no bad. No me. Just missions and discipline and duty.   
  
Manticore, sweet Manticore.  
  
We build our own cages, you know. Lydecker built his when he signed up for a project   
that ended up meaning much more to him than just some lab experiment. Max built hers   
the day she broke into Logan Cale's apartment. I guess she sort of helped him build his,   
too. And Zack built his cage the day he started to love Max.  
  
And I'm building mine now. I don't know if I can live with it, but then, it's not the living   
I'm really concerned with anyhow. It's the remembering.  
  
"Only the strong survive, soldier. Remember that."  
  
Bullshit. We were strong. Me and Krit, Max and Zack, Jondy and Tinga and Zane and   
Ben. We were damned strong. And Jace? Her and her baby girl? They were strong. A   
bombing in Cuernavaca took them and Jace's new husband out in no more than a blink,   
and they were strong. It's not the strong who survive. It's the strong who live. Who can   
capture some brief bit of life amidst all the death and destruction happening all around   
them. Like Max did with Logan. Like Tinga and Zane and Jace did with their families. I   
guess kind of like me and Krit did when we were together. The strong live.  
  
And I don't know about survival. Do any of us really survive? My brothers and sisters   
were strong and they lived, but they didn't survive. And if you're not really living your   
life, what are you surviving for, anyhow?   
  
Nothing.  
  
Strength isn't about surviving. It's about living. And when you can't do that, it's about   
remembering the times when you lived.  
  
So I'm walking these dirty, old streets of Seattle remembering for the last time. Because   
that's all I have the strength left to do.   
  
  
  
  
  
A/N: Okaaay. This was a pretty dark little ramble, huh? I don't know what I was   
thinking. It was late when I wrote it and I felt like being dark and rambling. And the end   
is a little weak, but I don't know…I thought I'd throw this out here anyways. Let me   
know what you think.  



End file.
